8.  Tüm Haber Sen is a trade union, now dissolved, which was active between 1992 and 1995. The application was lodged by its former president, İsmail Çınar, a Turkish national who was born in 1954 and lives in Istanbul.
9.  On 16 January 1992 Tüm Haber Sen was formed when its founding document was lodged with the Istanbul Governor's Office, in application of Article 51 of the Constitution. Its statutes referred, inter alia, to the right to conclude collective-bargaining agreements. The founders of Tüm Haber Sen were 851 public-sector contractual staff working in the communications field, in particular for the post office (PTT) and the telecommunications service (Türk Telecom). When it was dissolved the trade union had 40,000 members and 55 local branches.
10.  On 20 January 1992 the Istanbul Governor's Office applied to the Şişli public prosecutor's office, seeking the suspension of Tüm Haber Sen's activities and the trade union's dissolution on the ground that State employees could not form trade unions. It referred in its complaint to Article 51 of the Constitution, section 1 of the Trade Union Act (Law no. 2821) and sections 22 and 27 of the State Employees Act (Law no. 657).
11.  In a notice of 3 February 1992, the Principal Public Prosecutor called on the Fourth Civil Division of the Şişli District Court to suspend the trade union's activities and to order its dissolution on the ground that under the positive law State employees, who were subject to Law no. 657, were not entitled to form trade unions.
12.  In their written observations submitted to the District Court on 26 March 1992, the trade union's representatives argued that the legal provisions in force did not expressly prohibit the formation of trade unions by civil servants and that an obstacle to the exercise of trade-union rights would be in breach of Turkey's international commitments as a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, the conventions of the International Labour Organisation, and the European Social Charter.
13.  On 15 December 1992 the District Court suspended the trade union's activities and ordered that it be dissolved.
14.  The trade union's representatives appealed to the Court of Cassation.
15.  On 14 February 1994 the Court of Cassation quashed the District Court's judgment and referred the case back to it. In its reasoning, it stated that the fact that the words “trade union” appeared in the association's title did not make it a trade union in the technical sense, namely that it would be authorised to call strikes and to enter into collective agreements. At the most, the association could be considered as a professional organisation which aimed to protect the interests of its members, who worked in a specified sector.
16.  Before the District Court, the representatives of Tüm Haber Sen argued that it ought to be considered as a trade union which was authorised to call strikes and to enter into collective agreements. On 9 November 1994 the District Court, having examined the arguments submitted by the trade union's representatives, upheld its initial judgment.
17.  The trade union's representatives again submitted an appeal on points of law.
18.  In a judgment of 24 May 1995, the Court of Cassation, sitting as a full court and ruling at last instance, ordered the dissolution of Tüm Haber Sen. It considered that implementation of the right to form trade unions, as set out in the Constitution, required the enactment of a general principles act. In the absence of any statutory provisions governing the legal status of trade unions for civil servants or public-sector contractual workers, the applicant trade union could not claim to have any legal status. Nor could it be considered as an association or as some form of professional organisation, since its leaders expressly presented it as a full trade union. In spite of Turkey's ratification of International Labour Conventions nos. 87 (on freedom of association and protection of the right to organise) and 151 (on protection of the right to organise and the procedures for determining the conditions of employment in the civil service) on 12 July 1993, the Court of Cassation, sitting as a full court, considered that the trade union could not rely on the conventions in question, since they were not directly applicable in domestic law and the legislature had not yet enacted implementing legislation.
19.  The judgment was served on the trade union's representatives on 8 June 1995.
20.  Between 26 June 1995 and 2 August 1995, all of Tüm Haber Sen's branches and sections were dissolved on the orders of the Ministry of the Interior.